The way is basically perfect. It is not a matter of practice or enlightenment.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.

Generosity generates its own enthusiasm. We don't have to force ourselves to be generous; we just need to start.

The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside.

Self-awareness is the key to freedom. The more we understand ourselves, the more we understand how to be free.

By understanding emptiness, one understands all phenomena. Without understanding emptiness, one understands nothing.

Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.

When you understand that all phenomena are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and non-self, attachment naturally falls away.

The mind is the forerunner of all things. Our present life is the result of our past thoughts, and our future life will be the result of our present thoughts.

The mind is like a well-forged sword - it adapts to all situations.

The true mark of a spiritual practitioner is that your own behavior is better, not that you can criticize others well.

The practice of Buddhism is fundamentally a practice of expanding our happiness and diminishing our suffering.

The highest mantra is to be without deception. The highest medicine is to have few desires. The highest meditation is not to be attached.

May all beings be happy, be peaceful, be liberated.

The technique of self-observation is the technique of observing the reality about oneself at the experiential level.

Real freedom is not about controlling our experience, but about being free within our experience.

The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?

The root of all mind is your own present pure awareness. Rest in that essence without seeking elsewhere.

Misery ceases to exist when we stop reacting to sensations.

The law of nature is the law of cause and effect. As you sow, so shall you reap.

Whatever is dependently co-arisen, that is explained to be emptiness. That, being a dependent designation, is itself the middle way.

In the spring, hundreds of flowers; in autumn, a harvest moon; in the summer, a refreshing breeze; in winter, snow will accompany you. If useless things do not hang in your mind, any season is a good season for you.

All beings by nature are Buddha, as ice by nature is water. Apart from water there is no ice; apart from beings, no Buddha.

The purpose of our lives is to be happy, and happiness is found in benefiting others.

Every being has the potential of becoming a Buddha. Our true nature is Buddha nature.

Each moment of clear seeing is a moment of freedom from the illusion of permanence, satisfaction, and self.

Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one's own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.

The practice is like peeling an onion. Layer after layer of delusion is removed through continuous mindfulness.

Our own life has to be our message.

Enlightenment is not the end of change but the end of resistance to change.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.

All that appears and exists, all of samsara and nirvana, has one ground, two paths, and two results. This is the magical display of awareness and unawareness.

Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.